Monday 7th November 11

Gill woke me up at 9.30 with a chap on the phone who wouldn't explain what he wanted to her, and when the handset was given to me, he spoke so fast that I couldn't understand him, so I asked him to repeat what he'd said... and he put the phone down!

However, it got me up and I got busy with some admin/paperwork, and found most of what I was looking for, and put several letters and cheques in envelopes, and before lunch cycled down to the post office on Melrosegate and put stamps on the ones which needed them, and sent them off.

I had lunch and washed up, and then went into the garden for the first time in a while and dug out a compost heap in order to refill it.

At 5 I put our eldest's bike on my trailer and cycled down to The Stables to pick him up. He'd started and evening class to work towards a GCSE English.  We came back via the logpile and Heslington.

In the evening I went to the LETS meeting which had changed venue, and was at the Priory Street Centre.  Melody was on good form and Sue was there too. Sue came with me to see Rory Motion at City Screen after the LETS meeting.  Rory was on fabulous form, and I really enjoyed the event, and it raised some money for York Green Party.  I walked Sue back to her van afterwards before cycling home.

Thursday 21st July 11

A bit of a lie in for me today, and then a day writing and dealing with phone enquiries.  I finished writing up my blog posts for my weekend in Hampshire.  I chatted to an organiser from the Sheffield Green Party Conference, where I've been booked to do some entertainment, but it looks like there might not be many (or any!) children to entertain, and a chap from Basingstoke about a possible gig in September.  I spoke to an agent who'd booked me last year but not paid me what was agreed.

Gill spent a long time doing the accounts, and going through things with me to check she was writing them up correctly.

I went out in the garden quite late on and did some weeding in the pond-to-be area and got my fix of outdoors.

I made my own tea, some broad beans and onion, pepper and mushroom, with a salad made of home grown cucumber, tomato and some waste olives.  It was lovely!

In the evening I had some lovely chats with assorted friends.  I feel very lucky to have my friends.

Thursday 19th May 11

A mixed day, with some boring bits, exciting bits, slightly annoyed bits and happy chilled bits.

So, up at about 9 and I spent the whole morning doing assorted paperwork.  I'm very slow at this.  I also had several phone calls, one booking Professor Fiddlesticks for Spofforth Gala and another booking for a charity event to raise money for building an extension (I think!) to an orphanage in Uganda.  I was really torn with this one,as it's on the same evening as the Manchester World Naked Bike Ride, which I really enjoyed last year, but the charity event looks good.  It is in the style of the  'Generation Game'; a 1970's TV programme where teams of participants did various games, including getting taught by an expert how to do something and then doing it, and the expert judging their efforts.  So I'll be the balloon modelling expert and teacher.... Yup, sounds like fun, different sort of fun to the WNBR.  They persuaded me with a small fee... again, I was torn, as I'd have liked to do it for nothing, but I was told that I was exactly what they wanted, and as I'm missing one of my favourite annual events, I don't feel quite so bad saying yes to this.

I'd got enough paperwork done to go to town and get a cheque out and post that to where it needed to be, and to get another one and bring it home as I haven't sorted the envelope for that, and get some money out to pay our first 2 months of Council Tax this year.  I went to Library Square to pay this but was told that it was only at St Leonard's Place where I could pay cash.  So there I also asked about water ingress into ancient cellars.  I spoke to someone from Environmental Health on the phone, who suggested talking to a drainage expert at the EcoDepot.

I said I'd go to the EcoDepot within the hour.  I called in on Miller's Yard, but Dylan wasn't there, but I did take 2 sacks of biodegradables.  The drainage expert, Brian, told me about the history of the area (drainage-wise!) and advised me to get Yorkshire Water out first.

When I came in, I rang them and got an appointment.  I think David will be pleased.

I visited Country Fresh, picked up 2 sacks of stuff, plus 20 potato sacks which I'll put on Freecycle.  I came back home and spent some time loading materials into the Compostumbler and the sit and wait heap.

I came in for a plate of pasta and our eldest decided that he wanted to go with me to the new 'thinking person's cabaret', Bright Club, which this month was at the Black Swan.  I'd enquired about it's suitability for young teens, and yes, it is OK.  So we set out a bit before 7pm, through St Nicks where I spotted a beautiful male pheasant. Our son had never seen one before and was entranced!  As we approached the Black Swan, we crossed over to see the Edible York Raised Bed, and Bill Eve was doing some weeding!  Good to see him.

The Bright Club was in the downstairs room, and it was crowded and smelled of fish and chips.  My son couldn't cope with the smell, crowd and darkness so we went.  I was a bit annoyed but continued chatting on the way back, but as soon as we reached home, I shot off on my bike to the York in Transition meeting at Peter's house, where I slowly forgot the traumas of attempting to be a good parent, and cheered up.  We had a good meeting.  I gave myself jobs to do.  Here I can be effective, useful, successful.  We had the meeting outside, sitting around Peter's washing machine drum fire-pit, which was good.  Tomas and Eleanor arrived, and had brought a small bottle of cider, as if they knew I'd be there and needing something.  I was so grateful!

I cycled to the Seahorse Hotel to book the little room for the Cosy Homes project meeting.  Good to meet an old friend, Jan, whom I worked with in Pizzaland in the 1980s!  Then came home to settle down to doing more dried apple, washing up. chat on facebook with other Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome people, wrote blog and got to bed after 3.

Thursday 31st March 11

Up quite early to see Liam who was heading off in a taxi at 8.45, so he could get the 8.20 train and get to his interview in Durham.

I made up my muesli, had breakfast and then went back to bed for a doze.  Luxury!  I just had an hour, but I wallowed in it...

Then I had a busy morning doing assorted housework, paperwork, admin and the like.  I wasn't feeling very bright... tired, headachy and I've got a cough which is really annoying.

I did a bit of work in the garden and collected logs from Jamie's house and tidied up after the strong gusts of wind which were blowing things around. Working outside made me feel a bit better.

I got a message from an old friend who wanted to talk, so at 5.30 I went to The Brown Cow and had just over an hour of quite intense but enjoyable conversation, after which I cycled 3 sacks of compost down to the St Clements Church beds which Edible York is doing up.  Dave gave me a tour of the area and there's a lot of soil which could do with improvement.  My 30 sacks will be a minimum.  Volunteers were stripping turf, so I came home with a load of that, which should come in useful.

Friday 26th Novbember 10

Spent the morning sorting out stuff for tomorrow's work in Huddersfield, looking at maps ant train times, contacting the market people... who were uncontactable and didn't get back to me... so I think I know what I'm doing, but it would have been good to have it confirmed.

I did a bit of assorted garden work, despite it being cold, and a visit to Country Fresh, and I sorted out a load of dried fruit for sale at tomorrow's LETS fair. I did 10 bags of 12 apple rings, 2 half pears, two half plums, two bananas, two kiwi slices, two pineapple slices, two persimmon slices... and labelled these for sale for £2 or £1 + Y1.  I also did  quite a few jars of fruit, again for a sterling and Yorky price, or just a sterling price.  I hope they all sell!

After tea I cycled down to Heslington to take the fruit to Melody.  I brought home a small bottle of truffle oil which had been prepared by their 12 year old entrepreneurial son.  He'd bought a 35 Euro truffle whilst on holiday in Italy and had worked out a way of recouping his money.  I now owe him £3.50's worth of dried fruit, which he loves, as a swap.

We all watched a good programme on the science of plants, and after that I had an interesting conversation with both boys based on an incident I'd read about because of a link in facebook, about a man who'd lost £80,000 from the roof of his car whilst driving to work, and a completely dissimilar event when our youngest found a pound on the sofa.  So we discussed the various ethical issues involved with finding lost money.  If you find a pound in the street, nearly everybody would just put it in their pocket.  Would you do it with a £2 coin?  A £20 note?  A roll of notes adding up to £100?  £1000?  Where is the cut off point?  What amount would you put in your pocket and think 'lucky me' and have no conscience, and at what value would you think 'I ought to report this find to the police'?  Obviously there's no 'right answer', it's one of those ethical dilemmas that occasionally people have to deal with.  This conversation led to a discussion about laws, speed limits, drugs, the age you can get married and more.  It meant they went to bed a bit late, but it was an interesting chat.

I did some more fruit later, and had a shave and a bath.

Tuesday 5th January 10

Well a dreadful-pre school time. Even I cannot believe the difficulty getting people motivated to go.

Gill eventually left with our youngest but they met others returning from school as many of the teachers hadn't got in, so although the school isn't officially closed, they were saying to people to go home if they wanted.

So Gill and our now happy boy went to play in the garden for a bit.

I did our monthly Carbon Account stats... gas and electricity meters, and when my graph came up with the new data, I was pleased to see that my carbon footprint, just using the simple home energy and travel stuff that they use, is 0.43 tonnes over the past year. This doesn't take into account my public transport use, food or other things I buy, not that I buy very much..., but it is still low. It is less than a 10th of the UK average of 5 tonnes using this calculator.

So, snow is the big news today... it didn't stop me cycling down to Country Fresh to get vegetables... and a warning, the cold weather will mean that some veg will go up in price and become scarcer. For instance, the local cauliflowers and carrots are now impossible to harvest, and as Country Fresh normally buys in local veg, they will have to buy ones in from elsewhere, making them more expensive. Richard has had another composter taking some unsold veg/fruit,which is fine by me as my trailer has developed a puncture and is out of action. But neither the snow or lack of trailer stopped me getting compostables from Freshways, and I popped into the Co-op for cereals and soya milk too.

I even spent a short while splitting logs.

Gill made a stew for tea, which we had with granary rolls. Simple and delicious. We had Christmas pudding and ice cream afterwards. I then went out on my bike again to visit a freecycler a mile or more away to pick up and unwanted diabolo and a travel Scrabble. I don't find cycling in snow and ice at all difficult. Just a bit cold.

Later, when all was quiet, I did various admin jobs such as some York in Transition stuff, York Green Festival stuff and even some prep for paying my tax!

Thursday 18th September 08

I took our youngest to school. Was quite moved by the sight of a tree in the schoolyard with literally hundreds of Orb Web Spiders' webs, all visible because of the autumnal mist and the sun shining through. Several people had said they'd noticed the same phenomenon whilst walking down Windmill Lane.

When I got in, I spent most of the morning inside despite it being a lovely outside, because I had loads to do. I had to book a venue for the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel, and email the members to inform them I did a bit more prep for the quiz on Friday night. I sent an email to a potential facilitator for our visioning meeting. I discussed some work with John from St Nicks for next week. And washed up.

During the afternoon, what there was of it, I did spend a little time in the garden. But at 3 had to go to school and do the first Green Thumbs Gang meeting of the year. This was very exciting and rewarding, because it was harvest! We picked fennel, beetroot, onions, spring onions, garlic, spinach, and LOADS of potatoes. We also had a fairly quick tour of the garden looking at weeds, blight, green potatoes, bolted lettuces and more. An extremely satisfying hour.

I visited Country Fresh on the way home and came back with about 4 boxes of compostables and some bought produce including a couple of avocados as a treat. Spent quite a bit of time sorting out the compostables, layering them with shredded twigs and cardboard, but rescued a good pile of little leeks and some cauliflowers which aren't perfectly shaped... so that might make a good soup or stew for tomorrow... Prepared this lot much later in the evening on the woodstove.